From the Introduction to the First Lecture about Jerusalem

1. The main problem underlining this lecture cycle is this: How can a modern person approach the sacred scriptures of ancient times, the Bible in our case? If he relies only on what our intellectual and materialistic sciences and culture offer him through his general education, he will invariably -if his quest is sincere- come to a dead end, to an impassable wall. He will feel that as long he is trying to experience and understand the true spiritual content of the Bible, using the best biblical studies, derived from our present scientific research in archeology, ancient history, cultural backgrounds, textual and literary criticism, philology and social science, he will feel as Goethe’s Faust did when he exclaimed two hundert years ago:

“Ah! Now I’ve done Philosophy,

I’ve finished Law and Medicine,

And sadly even Theology:

Taken fierce pains, from end to end.

Now here I am, a fool for sure!

No wiser than I was before…”.

2. He may then try to go back (as Faust also did) to the more or less ancient spiritual traditions, which are blooming today everywhere in many forms. For example, he may turn to the cabalist and mystical traditions of the middle ages. He will find there a totally different approach to life, God, and scriptures. He may also try to practice some of their meditative and spiritual techniques. For example, he may try some of the powerful exercises created by the Jewish prophetic and ecstatic cabalist of the 13th century, Abraham Abulafia. If he will practice those exercises seriously for long enough time, he will certainly experience a change of consciousness, and sooner or later will have visionary imaginations, dream-like apparitions and similar trance like experiences. However, would he honesty ask himself if he can find clear answers to his universal human questions in these visions, if he wouldn't want to give up the clarity of thinking and perception that he enjoys today in science and daily life, he will have to admit that even the best spiritual views and practices of the ancients, cannot offer him what his modern mind and heart are longing for. And again he will be thrown back on himself, bitterly experiencing the dead end and limits of our present modern consciousness and knowledge. And many people really stop here and give up any further spiritual quest and exploration.
3. However, if he doesn't give up his search for a modern spiritual world conception and a fully conscious spiritual experience, he will have again to take his stand with Faust against the Ahrimanic spirit of our age, Mephistopheles, and find the courage to experience this: “In the empty desert of modern intellectualism and materialism, in this spiritual nothingness, I will venture forth to discover the fullness of the spirit!”- but in order not only to say it, but to actually do it, he will have to realise that he has to start from the present forces of the human soul, and strengthen and deepen them further. Then he may understand Rudolf Steiner's approach to modern spiritual life, and enter this stream in a living, not theoretical and intellectual way.
4. In this stream, the following words of the Bible will begin to acquire a wholly new aliveness and meaning, because they will speak to his present existential and spiritual situation: “The voice of the spirit is speaking in the lonely desert of my modern soul-and culture, proclaiming: open up and straighten the path of the real spirit that wishes to enter into your self-conscious modern I!”. (Isaiah 40:3). He will then be able not only to read the words in the Bible, analyze and interpret them in this or that way; the words will become alive in his soul right here and now, they will begin to resonate and speak not from outside, but from within the human soul, in the full self-consciousness of the modern mind and heart. And they will become again in this way a source of life, speaking directly to the human soul about the mysteries of the becoming and future evolution of his true self, the I AM, and he will find that the more he actualizes this self through modern clarity of thinking, feeling and will, the more the biblical word will be awakened and resound in his heart in its original form and power. He will be able to feel: In the beginning was the Word... and now the Word in me is becoming my true self!